Daughter of Darkness
by RulerOfTheDisenchantedForest
Summary: A woman on the run from the father of her unborn twins, tries to hide their existence from him. This is the story of one of those twins. Rated PG to be safe, and hopefully I can manage the suspense part.
1. Prologue

Prologue

Cursing at the intrusive knock, he left the shadowy depths of his bed, growling "Enter." The curse on the woman was strong enough; he need not worry that she might repeat his conversation.

"Master, you wished for an update on the search for the Potters?"

"That is correct. How does it go?" From the man's body language, he felt the news would not please him.

"Not well, I'm afraid, master." The man behind the mask was shaking, no one liked reporting failure to the master; punishments were severe. "W-w-we have not made any progress since the last report, master." As soon as the words left the Death Eater's mouth, he hunched up as though preparing for a blow or curse to be flung his way.

"What did you say?" The quiet, calmly spoken words were meant to hide his displeasure, but the man crouching beneath him had been working with him long, and understood that this was far worse than any shouting.

"We," the man took a deep breath, as though fortifying himself to face his doom and then began again, "We have found no trace of the Potters, master." The last word was spoken in a fearful, hesitant whisper. The man did not flinch away, but merely closed his eyes as though this was what he'd been expecting from the moment his knuckles brushed against the door to the outer chamber. As his master's wand arm came up his lips moved in a last, silent farewell to the world, and then in a flash of green light, it was all over.

"It seems I shall have to head the search myself, for the boy may not be allowed to live." With that, Voldemort went back to his king sized bed and his unwilling consort, resuming his pleasures where he had been interrupted moments before.

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When he left her that night he forgot to renew the Imperious Curse. Lying back on the downy pillows, she thought back to the first time she met Voldemort. She had been vacationing in Bulgaria with her school friend. Alyena had gone to bed early that night, leaving her alone at the bar where she had a celebratory drink of butterbeer for passing her N.E.W.T.s with mostly O's and a few E's.

While she sat there thinking how wonderfully she had done, the door opened, and though it was not a chilly night, she shivered. In walked a tall man with jet-black hair and steely blue eyes. He glanced around as though expecting someone. She saw a flash of some emotion that from such a distance she couldn't recognize. However, she did know the look of displeasure that remained even after his eyes had become impassive again.

Then he turned slowly toward her as if he had felt her eyes on his face. As their eyes met, his features smoothed out and he put on a small friendly smile. Not many years later, she would curse herself for ever trusting that smile. After that night, he continued to come to the Broken Broom Inn, seeking her out while she finished off her vacation.

Hearing his name the first time she had thought nothing of it, he had not yet openly employed illegal means to achieve his ends. She hadn't known then just how far he was willing to go. They had gotten along fine discussing their views of muggles and the muggle-born witches and wizards. She came from a prominent pure-blood family and was proud of the fact, she thought there should be some distinction made between the different wizarding families. Similar views, a handsome face, a charming personality, she couldn't help being lured into becoming more than merely friends. She should have realized it was an unnatural charm, like that of a snake charming a bird from its nest. When she was supposed to end her trip and return to England he convinced her to stay with him instead, "help his cause."

But never in her wildest moments had she thought his cause worth killing for. When she discovered his darker side and tried to break things off with him he had been furious. In his rage, steel blue eyes glinting with his anger, he placed the Imperious Curse on her for the first time. He moved her to a windowless chamber and forced her to give the impression that she never wanted to leave her rooms. For several years this continued, him renewing the curse each night as he left her, to insure she never slipped his control. She tried to fight, as her Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher had instructed, but Voldemort was powerful, and she couldn't throw the curse off.

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But tonight, tonight he had forgotten. She had thought in the foggy recesses of her mind, that perhaps he would forget. He had seemed preoccupied in the few hours he remained in her company.

She lay on the ostentatious bedding savoring the feel of minor control over her own actions and thoughts. That night she began to form a plan to escape the Dark Lord, the man she once thought she loved.

Today was Rosier's turn to guard the lady's apartments. Although this duty brought no recognition from the populace, not the way the killing curse did, it was still a sought after position. Only the Dark Lord's most valued men were trusted with watching his lady.

When he took her lunch in to her that day he noticed that she seemed more lucid than she had the last time he had had guard duty, four months previous. As he had tried to explain to his master the next morning when her rooms were found empty, he could not have recognized this as a warning of her pending escape.

Prostrating himself on the carpet covered stone floor at his master's feet, he accepted the interrogation and the pain without question, but at the back of his mind he thought, 'Why did he not warn us the violet eyed witch might flee? Had I but known…perhaps I would not now face my death.'

But Voldemort did not stay to kill his negligent Death Eater, he still needed to find the Potters, he had no time to deal with this distraction. Knowing his pet must have slipped his curse, he set Malfoy to search for her-without the curse she might leak information to the Order- and to keep an eye on Rosier, that man was no longer to be trusted.

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Relief and giddy happiness came over her in sweeping waves as she rested at Alyena's apartment above the rare ingredient shop she ran. She had been running from Death Eaters for a month now and had finally found a safe place to regain some of her strength. She had been feeling sick lately, puking frequently.

Alyena returned with the Healer she had run for. The two women had not seen each other for several years, but Alyena was a true friend and did not turn her away when she turned up in the shop that afternoon. As the Healer began his examination, Alyena went to make tea.

The Healer looked up sharply after only a few moments. "You are not ill, ma'am, you're pregnant. Twins or I didn't train under Healer Gaddleputz."

There was the sound of broken china from the kitchen. She looked at the Healer, horrified, and quickly said, "Thank you sir, you may go." She waited until she heard his footsteps on the outer stairs before calling for her steadfast friend.

"Alyena, what am I going to do? If Voldemort finds out he's going to be a father…" she ignored her friend's jump at the name of the Dark Lord.

"He can't find out. That's all. He just won't find out."

"This means I can't keep them. But, who will look after them? We can't kill them."

"Well, Celeste, I could look after them. That way they would be close to you…" she trailed off when she saw the expression on her friend's face. Celeste had changed, that look of fierce determination, and Alyena thought she saw a trace of hatred, was more worthy of a Gryffindor than a Ravenclaw.

"We have to split them up. They'll be more likely to survive if they aren't together. But who will take the second twin? No, never mind, I will think of someone, as long as you don't know where the other is, you cannot be tortured into revealing the information if the Death Eaters find you and the first."

Alyena's sight blurred and she felt herself swoon.

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well that's my first try. i warn you all now that i am not good at keeping up with things i start, that's actually why i decided to post here in the first place. either way i would be writing this story, but it would have a chance at getting done, maybe, if people yelled at me for not updating it. so you know what that means because you're a smart person and can figure things out......please review!


	2. Prologue cont or At Alyena's

DISCLAIMER: i shouldn't need this since anyone reading my story knows i own NOTHING. so there will be no suing of me. all i could pay in is, maybe, chocolate chips....

Prologue continued.....

As Alyena came to, she realized someone had moved her to her bed. Glancing around quickly, she stood. "Celeste?" she called, hoping her friend had not been found while she lay useless under her covers. Alyena ran from room to room, poking her head into the spare, searching frantically, but not calling out again. If You-Know-Who knew Celeste was gone, he would have people out searching for her. He might even have remembered Alyena from that summer in Bulgaria, just after school, and sent spies to her home. She couldn't take the risk that someone might learn Celeste had been to visit her.

Alyena felt her pulse quicken with fear. Celeste was not in the apartment! Running an anxious eye over her front parlor, she noticed a slip of paper lying under a half-empty teacup. Grasping the note with trembling fingers, she carefully read her friend's neatly clipped handwriting.

"Have gone to pay a visit to that Healer. Do not worry. Back soon."

As her eyes scanned the final word, she heard the door open.

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Celeste walked into the room to see a very flustered Alyena.

"My dear friend, didn't you get my note?" but she continued without giving the other witch a chance to reply. "After you passed out I realized the Healer might have recognized me. I couldn't allow him to fall into Voldemort's greedy hands, so –"

"Celeste! Tell me you didn't kill the man!"

"Of course not! I performed a very strong memory charm on him. Hopefully it's strong enough that not even Voldemort's torture can break it. What's wrong with you?" she gave her friend a befuddled look.

"I don't….I don't like hearing the……" she took a breath and then hissed out, "Name!"

"Well, if that's all," and once again Celeste was all business. She had her hard won freedom; now all she had to do was make sure her children would have the same. "I have worked out the memory charms we will need when the twins come, and in the next few months I will be preparing some charms and spells to Transfigure their appearance. _He,_" she said, looking pointedly at Alyena, "is clever enough to send out a search for anyone who resembles either of us if he finds out I'm…pregnant," she sighed and sank down to a cushioned chair.

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Over the next few months, Celeste spent all her time working on the spells she needed. A former Ravenclaw, she was talented enough to write her own, which is what she did. Every hour of her day she could, she was at it in the spare room. It was a tight fit for her and all her spell components, and if she had not been distracted by her work she would have noticed the despicable hue of "rose" someone had painted the walls. Then she would have felt it necessary to place a little charm on the walls for the duration of her stay. As it was, however, the walls remained a putrescent pink. Celeste barely ate or slept, her whole being devoted to protecting the life inside her.

Alyena began to worry. From the baby room she was preparing for her twin, she could hear the never-ending stream of ideas flowing from Celeste's mouth. It wasn't long before the pace Celeste set herself began to affect her health. Up from before dawn, until the early hours of the morning the next day. But no matter what arguments Alyena made, she wouldn't slow down. Before much time passed, a feverish look crept into her eyes. That's when Alyena knew she had to step in, or neither mother nor children would survive the pregnancy.

Choosing her time carefully, she slipped a sleeping draught into Celeste's tea one afternoon during the fifth month they'd been sharing the apartment. Normally, Celeste would have known something was going on, but she hadn't been completely there for the past month, and her senses seemed dulled. After only a few minutes, the draught began to take effect. It would have been faster if it weren't diluted in tea, but Alyena wanted to make sure Celeste did not just collapse on the floor. She wanted time to get her friend to the bed before the other witch slipped into a peaceful (and if the bottle didn't lie, a fifteen hours long at the least) sleep. She had decided to speak to Celeste again _after_ the woman got some decent rest. If she tried before, one of those scary looking spells now in the spare room just might be used against _her_!

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There were voices in the darkness. She seemed to have come in the middle of a heated conversation. 

_'Find her!!" came a harsh, throaty growl._

_'We have been trying mas- aaaah!' the second voice broke off in a wail of anguished pain._

_'Trying?' a peal of cold laughter seemed to echo from the depths of the foggy blackness, it came from everywhere and nowhere all at once, then, abruptly, it……stopped? What happened? she wondered. Did he choke? But then the voice resumed and she knew she'd been much too hopeful in thinking he might have been dying._

_'That wench could cost me _everything_ I have worked for, and you tell me you're trying? Trying is not good enough. If that is the best you can do, perhaps you don't belong in this line of work Malfoy,' the name came out as a sneer, the man with the cold laugh was mocking this Malfoy person. 'Maybe you should join Rosier…'_

_'That will not be necessary. We have narrowed the field of our search. It is only a matter of time before she is found master,' he fervently said. She could tell he was hoping with every fiber of his being, that the other man would leave this topic at that._

She never heard the rest because the blackness began to fade, the fog started to clear, and the darkness was becoming instead a bright light.

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Her eyes opened briefly, but quickly fluttered closed again, unable to withstand the whiteness surrounding her. As she lay there, examining her eyelids for light leaks, she realized this was not the last place she remembered being. She had been drinking tea with Alyena, then there were those voices, and now she was in a bed. Instantly suspicious, she steeled herself to open her eyes a second time. Very slowly, she opened her left eye a crack. Then when she could stand that, she did the same with her right. She placed her feet on the cool wood floor, while squinting around, trying to divine her whereabouts. By the time she had managed to stand erect, she felt she could open her eyes further. What she saw when she did shocked her.

It. Was. PINK! Everything. It was all some cursed shade of pink that only a colorblind fool of a tasteless man might pick out, and even then, they tended to have more sense. Suddenly she was afraid that she had been captured and placed here for the sole purpose of driving her insane. It might work at that.

Just as she was getting ready to fight her way out, kicking and screaming, maybe pulling hair-but only when absolutely necessary of course, she noticed all the spell components, the stacks of parchment covered in very familiar handwriting. On closer inspection, she came to the conclusion that it was her own handwriting. Her eyebrows rose in surprise, and she looked closer at the actual furniture, then grinned sheepishly at her reflection in the slightly dirty mirror. It was her room at Alyena's. How could she not have noticed those walls before? Or the sheets? Or the pillows? They were all a matching shade of puke pink. She had always prided herself on her fashion taste, but if she hadn't even noticed such a dominating color for, what was it, five months? _What happened to me? I haven't been myself in so long!_

Celeste moved to the trunk hidden behind a self-boiling cauldron in the far corner to find something neat to replace her rumpled outfit. But everything she pulled on felt much too loose everywhere but around her stomach. _Have I really lost that much muscle mass? Why didn't Alyena do something? If I don't fill out a bit soon, I could die from starvation!_

Just then, from down the corridor she heard Alyena's voice calling out, "Celeste? Is that you?"

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so. that is my second installment! thank you dragonwing for your review. believe me i WOULD have forgotten i'd written a story at all without that wonderful email saying i had a review. lol. i actually jumped up from my computer and ran/pranced around my house, stopping next to anything with sufficient brain capacity to understand my gibberish, bounced about while giving a delighted squeal and explaining why i was acting so strangely! hehe my first ever review for my first ever fanfic! -author glances around hoping no one noticed her confession to 'prancing' or 'squealing'- hmm. anyway.....i then sat right back down and started writing this chapter

i am a fickle person prone to short term memory loss. this means i need reminders that i have forgotten to update, that i havent even thought about my story in some time! i regret to say you may need to yell at me to keep the chapters coming. and i havent even gotten to the REAL story yet. im still in my prologue. so review!


	3. End of the Prologue or A Raven Down

DISCLAIMER! no, i do not possess magical powers that let me gain the rights to all my favorite books, so i have not acqiured them since my last post, as i am very much not rich enought to do that without magic. thus, anything you may recognise from the books or movies is NOT MINE! sits down and cries about it

Fingers brushing ever so lightly against the blue walls, she choked back a sob. Only last week, Celeste had been staying in this room. _She repainted the day she woke up from that sleeping draught._ The babies had been fine. _She didn't even tell me if the second was a boy or a girl, just whisked it away to its new home. At least that child is safe, none but Celeste knew who it went to, the family doesn't even know whose it is._ Hers was in the nursery, never realizing her young, beautiful mother had died, only just managing her spells before her fiery spirit was extinguished.

The Daily Prophet didn't have the real story, not by a long shot. Merric Sloane said the last descendent of the Raven's had been found in the waiting room of St. Mungo's, dead, the Dark Mark floating above her, glaring with its hideous empty sockets at all who came near.

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The Daily Prophet 

_Raven's Last Found Dead_

This morning, the day after Harry Potter's amazing survival, _writes Merric Sloane_, young Celeste Raven was found dead. The ominous Dark Mark staring down on her, it is obviously the work of Death Eaters. Miss Raven, it is commonly known, associated with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and was seen as the closest thing to a wife He would ever have. Though she never emerged from the seclusion of their secret home, letters to her family indicate she was very close to Him. This reporter believes the Death Eaters were trying to get information from her as to his whereabouts, she being His closest companion, and dumped her at St. Mungo's when she proved useless…

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The attacks were closer to her home now. They were circling in on her little shop. People were remembering that she and Celeste had been school friends. She was getting dirty looks in the streets for being connected to someone so close to the man they all feared and hated. Soon his minions would find her. She knew they had ways to make her talk. She couldn't let her dead friend's daughter fall into their hands. The child had to grow up good. She wasn't near as good as Celeste had been at coming up with on-the-spot spells, but maybe if she….

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yes, it's short, but thats because it's the end of the prologue! i bet you're excited! i mean after this we get into who the story was meant to be about! lucky you!

thanks again to dragonwing. and sorry i took longer than before, i had prom and then my friends' graduations. it wasnt the time for writing anything that would make me sad. anyone reading this without reviewing: just click that little button, i know you can do it! i dont think i would mind flames, wont know until i get one, but perhaps i will just use them to make s'mores! yum!


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